Narrated by Rebecca de Leeuw

Tracy Anne Warren’s Byrons of Braebourne series about the five Byron siblings (four male, one female) was originally published between 2009 and 2011, but was only released in audio format recently. Rebecca de Leeuw is the pseudonym of a narrator I’ve enjoyed listening to a couple of times before, so I decided to pick up one of the books for review. I chose book four, Wicked Delights of a Bridal Bed, because I enjoy friends-to-lovers stories and because according to the synopsis, the hero has been secretly in love with the heroine for years; I’ve got a bit of a soft spot for romances in which the hero is a total goner for his lady-love.

Mallory Byron has spent the last year
mourning the death of her fiancé, Michael Hargreaves, who was killed in battle
during the Napoleonic Wars. Her large, close-knit family is worried about her;
it’s been over a year since Hargreaves was killed but Mallory continues to
avoid social gatherings and family events and none of them is quite sure what
to do or how to help her to start to put her grief aside and move on with her
life. But there’s one person who might be able to get through to her and help
her to start living again, Adam, Earl of Gresham, a family friend of
long-standing who has always been especially close to her.

Adam has, in fact, been in love with Mallory
since she was sixteen, but circumstances – he was a decade older, his family
was all but destitute thanks to his profligate father, and Mallory was his best
friend’s little sister – prompted him to wait before trying to court her. Unfortunately
for him, however, he waited too long, and had to watch from the sidelines as
she was courted by and fell in love with someone else.

But now things have changed again, and
while Adam can’t deny that he’s determined to win Mallory for himself, his
concern for her is far from selfish. He knows all too well the searing pain of
loss and grief and how easy it is to become so mired in that pain that it seems
impossible to escape. But escape it he did – and he determines to help Mallory
to do the same. He recognises immediately that leaving her to her own devices –
as her family has done – isn’t going to work. They’ve been treating her as if
she’s likely to break, tiptoeing around her and indulging her with sympathy and
kind words… but all that’s doing is encouraging her to remain stuck in the
past. Adam can see that Mallory needs something to shake her up a little,
something to remind her of who she was and what life was like before her fiancé
died, and convince her that returning to herself and the life she used to lead
isn’t a betrayal of Michael or her feelings for him.

When Adam arrives at the late-summer
houseparty being held at Braebourne, he immediately sets about his plan of
bringing Mallory out of herself, cajoling and teasing her into attending dinner
rather than taking a tray in her room, and then into riding out with him early
the next morning. Mallory tells herself that the ride is a one-off… but somehow
finds herself riding out with Adam the next morning. And the next. Until it
becomes a regular occurrence for them. During these rides, Mallory at last
begins to let go of her grief and to enjoy the time spent with Adam, who, in
spite of his ability to infuriate her, is charming, funny and excellent
company. The author allows time for the couple to become comfortable with each
other, and for Mallory to admit the attraction she is feeling for Adam; he’s
pleased to see her gradually regaining her vitality and is just happy to spend
time with her and wait patiently for the time when he can tell her the truth of
his feelings and ask for her hand.

It’s not a spoiler (it’s in the synopsis)
to say that Adam finds himself doing that before he’d expected to after he and
Mallory are discovered in a compromising situation and honour demands he do the
right thing. The couple is married around the half way point in the story – and
it’s here that things begin to go downhill, partly because Adam seems to undergo
a serious personality transplant – turning from a kind, compassionate and funny
man into something of an insensitive idiot – and partly because the story
starts to drag. Nothing much happens other than them having lots of sex (which
is well-written, it’s true, but after the first one or two scenes, I didn’t
need to listen to any more!) and Mallory spending lots of money on decorating
their homes. And then, when the serious conflict arises around three-quarters
of the way through, Adam’s personality transplant takes a real turn for the
worse when he turns into a nasty, jealous knobhead – which pretty much tanked
the book, because his behaviour was totally unreasonable and disgraceful, as
well as not fitting with the character the author had established in the first
part of the book.

Another major quibble is that the secondary
cast of siblings, spouses and children is huge and it was difficult to keep
track of them, especially as very few of them have any real relevance to this
story. Also, Braebourne is in Gloucestershire, and Adam takes Mallory to a
castle on or by the North Wales coast for their honeymoon – and they make the
journey in just a few hours. Today, that journey takes around three and a half
hours by car, so unless they got married at the crack of dawn (they didn’t) and
didn’t hang around for a wedding breakfast (they did) getting there on the
afternoon of their wedding day would have been impossible. Stuff like that just
bugs me.

Rebecca De Leeuw has narrated a fair number
of historical romances, and her voice falls into my ‘preferred’ category in
that it lies in the contralto register than the soprano one. The best female
narrators of historical romance – such as Rosalyn Landor and Kate Reading –
have voices I’d describe that way, and their naturally lower pitch means
they’re able to sustain suitably deep voices for the male characters without
them sounding strained or odd. Ms De Leeuw has this ability as well, giving
Adam a nicely warm, rounded tone and differentiating reasonably well between
the numerous male characters in the story – although I sometimes needed to rely
on the dialogue tags, especially in scenes that featured more than two or three
men. She does equally well with the female roles, allocating different vocal
characterisations to each of the Byron ladies and employing different accents
where required to portray the servants. Her pacing is good in narrative and
dialogue, and she expertly captures the shifting emotions between the hero and
heroine; affection, irritation and attraction, all come through well, as does
the humour and teasing they engage in.

But even the strong performance can’t help
with the slow pacing of the story in places, or paint some of Adam’s actions in
a better light. I enjoyed Wicked
Delights of a Bridal Bed sporadically, but at other times, it dragged,
annoyed or infuriated, so I can’t give it an unqualified recommendation.